It was only when the representatives sent by Chelyabinsk had enough of crying that Stalin breathed a sigh of relief and said: "You probably don't know that the situation has taken a turn for the worse recently, right?" ”

"Kyiv has fallen, the Germans have occupied it and annihilated the defenders there." With a hint of a sneer, he spoke about the situation in Ukraine as a whole.

"How is this possible?" Representatives of Chelyabinsk heard the news and exclaimed with wide eyes.

Looking at each other, Stalin told him everything that had happened recently, as if he had broken a jar: "Krivoy Rog, Nikopol and other regions have surrendered!" Those soldiers who were supposed to fight valiantly have forgotten their oaths. ”

He spoke of the collapse of the soldiers' will to fight, as well as of the recent rout: "Our army will no longer fight to the last man, and when there are thousands or even tens of thousands, they will retreat and surrender!" ”

"Dnepropetrovsk has been surrounded on almost three sides, and in just a few days, it has become an isolated city, and the surrounding towns have already surrendered to the Germans." While saying this, Stalin paused for a few seconds and took a sip of water.

"A few days ago the Germans took control of Kherson, crossed the Dnieper and began to advance towards the Crimea." In the delegate's stunned eyes, Stalin put down his glass and continued.

"Nikolaev, the main transportation route that had been held for a month, was surrounded by German troops, and finally ran out of ammunition and food, and the army was completely annihilated. It had already become a communication node for the German army, and perhaps the Germans had already begun to set up a supply distribution camp there. At this point, Stalin smiled self-deprecatingly.

"Our defensive line collapsed almost overnight, a large amount of weapons and equipment was abandoned, and large swathes of land have been lost." The officer, who was accompanying Stalin, added in a depressed voice.

Because Stalin didn't want to talk about such a shameful thing, he motioned to the officer next to him to continue the conversation for him.

"We have lost at least 1 million people, and now there are still a few troops who have not been contacted, and maybe they have also been annihilated." In the end, the officer came up with a pessimistic figure.

The figure of 1 million is a conservative estimate, but in fact the German army did not annihilate so many Soviet troops. About 700,000 Soviet troops in the encirclement of Kiev were annihilated. About 90,000 people were exterminated, and the rest became prisoners.

Also outside the Kyiv encirclement, there are some battles. In the end, the Soviets kept some areas, but they lost more.

However, one-third of the Soviet army was still surrounded and annihilated, and probably all the Soviet troops in Ukraine, including officers, one out of every three were captured or killed in battle.

The news was really too exciting, and after hearing this, the representative from Chelyabinsk felt that he had really cried early.

When he came, Chelyabinsk had not yet reported this information, and the intelligence there only said that Zhukov had not won the Battle of Kursk and led the army to retreat to the Sumy region.

But who would have thought that in just half a month, the situation in Ukraine has deteriorated to such a point.

The Germans not only defeated the 2 million Soviet Red Army, but also occupied most of Ukraine. The current Ukraine is simply the grave of the Soviet Red Army, not to mention the bloodstained battlefield of hundreds of thousands of people, and hundreds of thousands of people have become prisoners of the German army.

According to the German war report, the current situation is that the defense system of the Soviet Union's more than 2 million troops collapsed in an instant!

"Nova Kakhovka was occupied by the Germans on September 17, and the vanguard of German Army Group D crossed the Dnieper River and completely encircled the Crimean Peninsula." As if feeling that what he had just said was not exciting enough, the officer talked about the fighting situation in southern Ukraine again.

"On the same day, the Soviet defenders stationed in Melitopol announced their surrender, and now Donetsk has become a front-line city." The officer had said that he had finished all that had happened.

"How is this possible? How is this possible? Comrade Stalin, the great leader! How could such a thing happen? ”

"What's not going to happen here...... What I'm saying is true, not only Kyiv, but almost the entire region of Ukraine, will be occupied by the Germans! After listening to the officers next to him finish speaking, Stalin took over the topic and said: "The Germans will not make peace, and if I were Hitler, I will not make peace at this time......

That Führer of Germany would be foolish to make peace at this time, unless the Soviet Union agreed to a peace treaty that would be more humiliating than defeat.

Perhaps the Soviet Union needed to cede all the territory west of the Ural Mountains, so what was the difference between that and fighting to the death?

"Maybe we should give it a try! Comrade Stalin, the great leader! Only by making peace with the Germans will you be able to return to the center of power and take power...... continue to lead the country......" the representative suggested.

"Even if the Germans don't agree to our peace proposal, we can buy ourselves some time by doing so." He talked eloquently, obviously preparing a lot of rhetoric along the way.

These rhetoric, which was intended to persuade Stalin to agree to open peace talks, have now become a real delaying tactic.

Even if the Germans did not believe in the sincerity of the Soviets' surrender and continued to maintain the offensive posture, they would have relaxed some of the offensive a little because of the negotiations.

In other words, it is also a strategic deception to make the German army think that the Soviet Union is weak and can no longer fight a subsequent war.

As long as the Germans were allowed to stop where they were and wait for half a month, then the Soviet Union would still be saved, wouldn't it? When winter comes, the Germans will definitely stop their offensive and give the USSR a few months of respite.

"Nope! Homosexuals! I will not agree to peace negotiations! The war between Germany and the USSR cannot end as long as I live! Stalin stubbornly rejected the proposal.

He stood up, walked up to the representative from Chelyabinsk, patted him on the shoulder and said: "Anyone can go and negotiate with the Germans, but only after I die!" ”

Stalin could not afford to lose this face, in his opinion, the Soviet-German war was something he insisted on waging, so he had to persist in fighting this war to the end.

Although it is impossible to verify who exactly fired the first shot of the Soviet-German war, the Soviet border troops did receive Stalin's orders and staged a farce.

In this situation, Stalin stubbornly did not want to admit defeat. In his opinion, only his death could put an end to this war.